Chapter 47
“Mom, is that-”
“Yeah, that’s your father.”
“Can I go-” Hermione asked.
“Honey, I’m not going to stop you.” Lilith said. “You’re sixteen, you’re old enough to decide for yourself.”
Hermione looked again, then whipped her head back around. “He’s frenching some redhead over there. I really don’t care to know.”
“Don’t be afraid to embarrass the hell out of him.” Lilith said. “Or you can find Ron and ask him to glare.” She chuckled.
“Or I can ask Uncle Bucky to ask Uncle Steve to glare.”
“You can do that too.”
“Can you come with me?”
“I haven’t talked to Tony in years, but it shows that he came out here to blast up some invading aliens.”
“My second alien invasion.” Ron said.
“You won’t remember your first, you were three.” Teddy said, apparating in. “Mom, the new science team just broke your DNA lock force field.”
“Good.” Lilith said. “You can bodyguard your sister or you can go manage FitzSimmons and Skye Nikaia.”
“I’ll go manage them.” Ron hastily volunteered.
“Alright. Remember, only surface legilimency, they’re really good, I have some notes, but you can make your own assessment. I trust you.”
“Great. No bodyguard duty for me!” Ron exclaimed ecstatic and apparated out. Hermione sighed.
“Were we like that?” Darcy asked.
“We still are, with Dudley in Ron’s position.”
“Touché.”
Teddy was close but not too close, shifting to his natural form. Hermione hid her nerves well, straightening her back.
She shot a few healing charms at Tony to get his attention.
“Haven’t felt this good in a while.”
“You’re my dad.” Hermione greeted him awkwardly.
“Yeah, I am.” Tony said, for once feeling awkward. “For what it’s worth, I'm sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“For everything. For everything that led to our divorce, sorry for not being able to be there for you as you grew up.”
Hermione hugged Tony. “I know. And that’s the difference between me and you and my namesake and your dad. I don’t remember you, but mom always said you’re a good guy who just made some mistakes.”
“I-”
“But more important things. Can I see JARVIS’ code?” Hermione asked, nearly vibrating with excited anticipation.
“Yeah, no doubt about it, you’re a Stark.” Tony said. “Sure. He misses you too.”
“Yes! I have a bet that I can get inside to see his code, the idea was that I’m supposed to hack JARVIS, but really, that’d be just mean. Mom says he’s like the first kid you raised, instead of Teddy.”
“What’s your favorite field? Please tell me that it's tech, engineering, or programming, I would be morally obliged to sulk if it was biochem or something.” Tony said.
“That’s Ron, give him a chem lab and you won’t see him until it either blows up or he invents another miracle serum. Well, unless Teddy drags him out of there.”
“Feel free to lay out all the hilarious sibling stories on me. Hermione and I, that is our aunt Hermione, we grew up on different continents, so I’m a bit lacking in those anecdotes.”
“Have you heard about the time I barely stopped Teddy and Ron from minituarizing a hydrogen nuke - Jericho bomb combination? Or no, wait, how about the time Teddy and I were going to try and build a different mini arc reactor, but we lost the Vibranium we managed to get?” Hermione started, full steam ahead, eager teenager with her first interaction with her father.
“Lay it out.” Tony said, as his Iron Man suit finally retracted, leaving him in his usual designer business suit, instead of the Iron Man suit covering everything but his head.
Ron followed Hermione’s magical signature, popping into a place he vaguely remembered as the Avengers lounge.
“Hermione,” he started, but paused, seeing her in a heated discussion with Tony as they examined a block of code.
“You write in binary? Seriously? I would have thought you’d use C++ or something.”
“It’s a talent of mine, topping above and beyond.” Tony smirked.
Ron cleared his throat. “Ahem, Hermione.” She turned around, and looked him in the eyes.
“We need to get back. Mom said to take Dad with us.”
“Why?”
“You’re the President, the worlds least criticized superhero revealed his identity to get at you, the House hasn’t impeached you yet, but FBI is on the way here and if you try to pardon yourself that goes to the Supreme Court. Tsaritsa Natalia of Russia has granted you political shelter without diplomatic immunity, also without extradition. You’re going to have to be President from beyond borders.”
“I need better PR folks.”
“The fact you’re still alive and free says a lot about your PR.” Hermione said. “Ron’s right. You need to go, and so do we.”
“Fine.” Tony agreed and his son side-along apparated him back to Blackwell Manor, which he was seeing only for the second time.
“Welcome to my most humble abode,” Lilith said. “Chateau Blanc is Teddys now.”
“Nice place. Now what was that about politics and FBI?”
“You’re the fucking President yet you don’t get politics?”
“I said I was going to run when I was drunk, high, or both. Then I was sober and I realized I had a reputation so I ran for president and I won.”
“Well, Tony, you can step down gracefully or you can crash and burn. This isn’t on purpose, but it’s worked out this way.”
“What do you mean?”
“I told Brant to step down because America won’t be having another presidential election. The country will have lasted for exactly 250 years and that’s it. Natalia is as good a puppet as Brant, listens to instructions but can also handle things herself, and with Steve’s help. Tony, this is it. In a week the USA and national borders as a whole will be no more and I have a war to start.”
“A war, Lilith?!” Tony grabbed her wrist before she walked away.
“We swore that if Loki Odinson returned to Earth we would go to war with his world and Asgard. Since they’re not one and the same you might want to get started on the nuclear deterrent. Yes, Earth is going to war, the Order is nearly ready, another day of rooting out spies and we’re done. The United States of America will fall under the head of either President Stark or your running mate who was it again?”
“Real estate guy who was willing to get the paperwork. Trump.”
“Or it can fall under President Trump. Your choice.”
“Press conference, dad you were just impeached, Trump is saying if he were elected in the first place on his own merits he would never have been impeached.” Teddy said, as he walked past.
“Alright, I’m pulling a Nixon. I quit before the Senate fires me.” Tony agreed.
“Great.” Lilith said. “Teddy, you like politics? You can go help Natalia achieve world domination.”
“How long do we have?”
“A week.”
“I’ll do it five days.”
“That’s a week, idiot.” Hermione saud.
“Well I’ll do it anyways.” Teddy said, as he apparated out.
“Now can I go to space and boss around Wanda's Ravager network?” Ron asked.
“Fine. But she’s four years older with more experience, so listen to her.” Lilith said.
“Great, thanks. Zemo’s break just ended, so I’ll get her to take me.”
“It’s Maximoff now, if you haven’t heard.” Hermione told her brother.
“Yeah, sure. Whatever.” Ron snarked back as he apparated out.
“Yeah, Darcy, that’s great news.”
“Great. Yeah, I have some political shit to deal with.” Then she paused for a second and said, “I keep forgetting you’re the queen of a whole planet. Do you deal with the political shit, and is Thor as bad as he seems?”
“He’s actually pretty good, especially PR. Hela’s the one that manages the stuff that goes off the books, so the back room deals, and I do the parts where they need to underestimate me. Seriously, so what if I can't use a sword, Sif can suck it up. Boo hoo for her, she wanted to be Queen of Asgard.”
“Yeah, I got that air around her. She’ll get over it.”
“She already did. She’s off Asgard, training with some Vanir warrior, working for- oh wait.”
“I self-disowned right after my sister utterly destroyed the purple grape dude with delusions of grandeur. All the magic shit I inherited I still have, but none of the bloodline. When your hubby looks for family members by bloodline he won’t be able to see me or Lilith anymore.”
“That sounds….”
“Awesome.”
“I was going to say extreme. I fought a lot with my mom, but I kept in touch until she died.”
“I never even met the guy until I self-disowned, Jane. And yeah. It took me ten seconds of being around him to make the decision. Anyways, what I was going to say, remember your engagement party and Thor’s coronation?”
“Yeah. That presentation, that was you, wasn’t it? I never asked.”
“Lilith and Tony, I helped but I wasn’t let in on it until go time. No, I mean I haven’t been to Asgard since then.”
“Loki came to Earth.”
“I just wanted to give you a heads up, there might be a couple nuke threats heading your way. I’m doing my best to diffuse it, but Lilith’s on a warpath, and Hermione has Tony wrapped around her finger, so there’s not going to be a lack of weapons or any bluffing involved. There’s not going to be any national borders within a few days.”
“Tony Stark the guy who stepped down from being President, Nixon-style because Spider-man basically proved Tony was responsible for three murders? Your ex-brother-in-law Tony Stark?”
“Yeah, my ex-brother in law, nicknamed Merchant of Death, who can create a weapon out of basically anything. Give him a jungle without a single speck of metal, he’ll make a nuke, leave him in a desert or an iceberg, you’ll have an Iron Legion. I have no clue how he does it, but that man is more dangerous than I am.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jane, I’ve been a ghost story in the intelligence community since I was 15. Still am. I’m probably the best super spy on Planet Earth now, plus I’m as nearly immortal as Thor, or now, you are. Tony Stark won’t survive past a few centuries and only ages about ten times slower than a baseline human, with the same increase in healing factor, he is a very large target with publicly known weaknesses, he has not been trained to survive and to win at all costs since he was 6 like I was after I nearly witnessed a xenocide. His body count is far higher than mine and he is more dangerous than I could ever hope to be, that’s why he and Lilith were such a good match.”
“They divorced and he just met his daughter sixteen years after she was born.”
“Were. Past tense. Isn’t it romantic to conquer the world together?” Darcy asked. “Anyways, I’m getting off track. I’ll try to diffuse them, but get Thor to put up all the defenses you can on Asgard. There might be a missile or two sent, but nothing that can’t be cleaned up or that’ll cause too many casualties, most of it will be targeted on Loki.”
“Too many casualties? Darcy, your sister is starting a war over one case of illegal immigration.”
“No, it’s a case of we warned him to stay away and we made it clear what would happen if he did. Now it’s time to show we’re not bluffing.”
“Darcy, your views are crazy skewed. I get you didn’t have a normal upbringing. But declaring interplanetary war over something insignificant?”
“That’s what every single King of Asgard has done thus far and what humanity has been doing since it learned to kill. Don’t act so surprised. Nobody even remembered why the Hundred Years’ War started, and that damn thing lasted 116 years, plus the French still don’t really like the English and vice versa over the fact of the matter like Americans and Russians after the Cold War except it’s been far longer.”
“Darcy, these are nukes you're talking about. Asgard is only the size of Texas, and that includes all bodies of water and the bifrost.”
“Well then tell Thor to shower up the defenses or try to hash out a peace treaty. You'll be fine, you’re going to be in the same building as Lilith’s cousin and his wife, she’s not going to bomb it.”
“What about the small army of dragon riders stationed here?”
“Oh, those. Yeah, that’s the attack she’ll probably start with. Some threatening formations, making sure everyone knows she’s not bluffing. Not like she needs to, everyone who's anyone knows she has everything, from an open secret network that’s scarily efficient and is currently 4 galaxies wide, to the nuclear launch codes and did you know Earth weaponry is the most advances in all of our surrounding galaxies?”
“Yeah, I knew.”
“Great. Now, I have to help Natalia Romanova handle Steve Rogers as soon as he finds out the United States of America is no more in a few minutes.”
“Wait what?!”
“It’s the United States of Earth now, and it’s combined with every country in the world and my sister rules the world now. So yeah, we’re all just from Earth, and any minute now you'll get a notification you’re honorary nobility so that your marriage to Thor can be an official alliance and all that shit.”
“Great. Thor!” Jane said sarcastically then turned her head to yell, as Darcy’s holographic projection stayed there, on her beloved swivel chair. “Do you have some sort of defenses ready in case war is declared?”
“Jane?!” Thor rushed in instantly. “Hello, Lady Darcy. What is this about war?”
“Your brother came to Earth so my sister’s declaring war and I just thought I’d warn you you're going to have scary military dragon formations in your sky sometime soon. I'm trying to calm her but you’d better shore up and have protections for anything and everything ready because Tony Stark is more dangerous than I am and if you’ve looked through that throne sight thing like I assume you have, you’d know I’m dangerous, as is everyone around me. Bye!” Datrtccy said, as she ended the call.
“Thor, she’s right. I know Darcy, and if she says her sister isn't bluffing, she isn’t.”
“I was cast out for nearly starting a war.”
“Good news is Darcy said there won’t be that much centered towards Asgard, it will be mostly towards Vanaheim, given that’s where Loki is, and Dudley Dursley is here.”
“That does seem reasonable.” Thor mused. “I will go talk to Heimdall.”
When Thor did so, Heimdall simply said, “my vision of nearly all of Midgard has been re-opened. I would advise you to control Loki and make peace, for their weaponry is unrivaled, and they will not back down, nor are they bluffing. Lilith Lokidottir owns the world, and her word goes.”
“She self-disowned, as did Darcy. I felt it myself, although it was little more than a twinge. Keep watch, Heimdall. I know you will not see their attack coming, but it is better than staying put.”
“My King?”
“Yes, Heimdall?”
“If you look for my advice, I would advise you to get the young prince and Princess off of Asgard, for I know if peace negotiations fall through, you, the Queen Mother and your Queen will not depart.”
“I will go with the negotiations, but I thank you for your advice, Heimdall.”
“Lilth, you’re not hoping to be the public ruler, are you?”
“No, Darcy, I won’t be.”
“Who will be?”
“Teddy’s turning 30, for all he looks 18. I think a planet is a nice gift, don’t you think so?”
The news of Edward Stark, King of Earth spread quickly sped up by the network. The Kree were the only ones that tried to attack the planet, but when their ship was decimated by a Jericó missile, only one small micro-craft and one kree soldier left to deliver the news back, the universe realized Terra, Earth, was far more dangerous than anticipated.